The girl nodded, and the smile upon her face, in connection with her kindness, made her very beautiful, and he continued:
"So yer jest took ther buck-skins and stuffed them and fixed on ther cap and hung them up, and it was so fa'r that even ther sharp eyes of ther warriors couldn't tell whether it was er dead man or not."
"And snared a rabbit and placed it where the head of the pale-face should have been."
"What in thunderation was that fer?"
The rest he could see through plainly, but that troubled him—was a puzzle he could not understand, experienced as he was in all manner of woodland subterfuges.
"That the birds would gather around and pick at it."
"As they would have done at my poor head and eyes ef they had bin thar! Give me a woman fer cunnin, arter all!" and he rolled backward and forward over the soft, thick bed she had prepared, in the excess of his merriment at the manner in which the crafty warriors had been deceived.
"The red-men knew well what would follow if the pale-face had remained," she answered, with a gratified look at his praises, and proceeded to describe more at length the difficulties she had encountered.
"Yes, yer must have had a hard time on it gittin' me heah. I ain't none of ther lightest or you none ther strongest, and you couldn't well have carried me."
"The daughter of the red-man raised the body in her arms, and though his moccasins left a trail she easily covered it up."